


The Edge of It All

by Sapphirine



Series: Burning Gold [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: MSBY Black Jackals - Freeform, Post Time Skip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:20:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26377186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphirine/pseuds/Sapphirine
Summary: It starts with a spider.Sakusa opens the door after his fourth knock.He narrows his eyes at Atsumu suspiciously. “What do you want.”“Omi-kun,” Atsumu says in his sweetest voice and sweetest smile, “‘M bored. Lemme come over at yer place.”
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Series: Burning Gold [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1916920
Comments: 34
Kudos: 514





	The Edge of It All

**Author's Note:**

> Hey my peeps I'm back with another SakuAtsu fic ;)  
> Okay so those of you who've read Just as Much before this, you might notice that my writing style has undergone a drastic change. I wrote Just as Much on a whim which means it's cheesy as hell. (Not a bad thing at all, what's the point of life without cheese?) But. I realized that's not exactly how I wanted my writing to be, always. SO after lots of sleepless nights staring at the ceiling, thinking about my two favorite jerks and how to capture the essence of their personalities and relationship in my words, here we are- The Burning Gold Series. 
> 
> I actually wrote the second part of this series first, then I formed an outline for the first part but then when I was done with this, I changed a lot of things from my original idea so now I have to write the second one all over again. But anyway, no one's probably interested in reading my rants lol. 
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy this :)

It starts with a spider.

  
  
  


Sakusa Kiyoomi is the last person that Atsumu wants to see in the tiny passage between their apartments. Not because he hates him (even though he does, a little), but because he is the least helpful person in this situation. 

Sakusa is probably returning from his run- his curls appear wind-swept and frizzy, his face flushed. He narrows his eyes at Atsumu, who’s sitting on the floor with his legs crossed, head resting on the wall behind him in his cotton shorts and a full-sleeved t-shirt that do little to protect him from the windy March evening. 

“Miya.” Sakusa’s voice is flat as ever, “The fuck are you doing.” 

Atsumu frowns and watches a bead of sweat rolling down Sakusa’s temples. “D’ya really wanna know, Omi?” 

“Huh,” Sakusa looks at the ceiling and then back at him. (He looks at Atsumu the way he looks at a crowded bus or metro- like he would rather swallow a coconut whole instead of entering one.) 

“You’re right, I don’t,” he says with a fluid shrug and the door of his apartment slams shut with a click. 

Atsumu sighs and then shivers, watching goosebumps break out on his legs. He’s barefoot, not even wearing socks. He’d left the apartment in great hurry, barely remembering to grab his keys before getting the hell out of there. 

Bokuto and Hinata didn’t pick up his calls and he’s too proud to ask his other teammates. Sakusa is useless. But Atsumu will rather swallow the coconut that Sakusa previously swallowed than call his brother for help. 

20 minutes later, he’s cold, hungry, thirsty and miserable. 

Ugh, he thinks and does the only sensible thing that occurs to him. 

Sakusa opens the door after his fourth knock.

He narrows his eyes at him suspiciously. “What do you want.” 

“Omi-kun,” Atsumu says in his sweetest voice and sweetest smile, “‘M bored. Lemme come over at yer place.” 

Sakusa glares at him in incredulity for a few seconds before he moves to shut the door again, lightning fast. Unfortunately for him, Atsumu has reflexes better than a ninja from years of living with an asshat of a twin- he jams a foot inside Sakusa’s apartment before the door fully shuts and yelps in pain when the corner stubs his tiny toe. 

_“Get your foot out of my apartment.”_ Sakusa looks down-right murderous and Atsumu is wise enough to retract his foot quickly. 

They have a glaring contest for a few moments that Sakusa wins. 

“Why.” He wonders if Sakusa is talking to him or the gods for subjecting him to this misery. He opens his mouth to answer but Sakusa cuts him off. “If you bullshit me about being bored or something, I will kick you out of this building.” 

Atsumu sighs again. They’ve been living in the MSBY apartment complex for about six months and he has never once entered nor asked to enter Sakusa’s apartment. The apartment, like everything Sakusa owns, is sacred and off limits for the likes of him. 

Sakusa’s hand starts moving towards the door again when Atsumu says nothing for a long time and he blurts out a “Wait!” 

The gloved hand rests on the doorframe, fingers fluttering lightly. Atsumu’s face feels hot. 

“There’s a spider in my apartment,” he mutters balefully. 

“Then kill it!” Sakusa hisses immediately, his face a mask of disgust and slight terror and _that-_

“Ya think I’d be here if I’d just killed it?” Atsumu snaps and watches realization dawn in Sakusa’s depthless eyes. “Oh,” he says, “You’re scared.” 

As if the resentment he feels for losing to Itachiyama in the Nationals is not enough, Sakusa has to say things that make him want to strangle him, if only because they’re true. 

He grits his teeth and manages to get out, “Yer the last fuckin’ person who gets to gimme shit ‘bout it.” 

Sakusa’s snort is his only response. “Wait.” he says and shuts the door in his face again. It opens a few minutes later and Sakusa appears holding a pair of slippers and a sanitizer. Atsumu automatically holds his hands out in front of him and rubs the cool, slippery liquid. Sakusa watches his every action with intense scrutiny. When he’s sure Atsumu’s hands are clean, he shoves the slippers towards him. 

“Put those on and straight into the bathroom. Do _not,_ ” there’s a bite to his words, “touch _anything_.” 

Atsumu obliges in silence. 

  
  


He emerges out of the shower with his hair dripping wet, smelling like an odd mixture of citrus and lemongrass. He’s wearing Sakusa’s t-shirt and sweats (how _weird_ is that, _Atsumu_ wearing _Sakusa’s_ clothes) because Sakusa put his clothes straight into the washing machine since Atsumu sat on the floor against a wall while wearing them. 

(“Do you even know the _amount_ of germs and bacteria-” Sakusa started saying, but Atsumu cut him off by taking off his t-shirt and shorts which Sakusa held at an arm's length while he carried them to the washer, like they were full of dog shit. He let him keep his underwear, at least, borrowing Sakusa’s underwear would be too fucking weird, even for Atsumu.) 

He pats his hair dry and looks around himself properly for the first time since he entered the holy terrain. 

Sakusa’s apartment is somehow more neat than he thought it would be. Like all other apartments in the complex, it has a small living room, tiny kitchen, a bedroom and a bathroom. Unlike most of the other ones, it also has a balcony whose door is closed at the moment. Atsumu feels a stab of jealousy- he would have liked having a balcony. Sakusa’s furniture is surprisingly made of sober colors as opposed to his neon, highlighter-like clothes. There’s a huge couch with a golden lamp by its side and a small coffee-table. And above the couch, there’s a large bookshelf attached to the wall. He’d never pegged Sakusa to be a reader, but then, despite having known him for almost a decade, Atsumu had never been close enough to know anything about him at all. Sakusa liked keeping his personal life separate and distant much as he liked keeping people that way. 

He turns his head at a clinking noise and sees Sakusa in his kitchen, taking out two mugs. He makes his way over there, letting the towel hang on his shoulders. 

“I don’t really like tea,” he says and wrinkles his nose. Sakusa shoves one of the mugs towards him in response. They have another staring contest that Sakusa wins. Atsumu grabs the mug none too gently and they sit on the opposite ends of the couch. 

“I’m not letting you stay the night.” says Sakusa and Atsumu rolls his eyes. 

“I’ll get Bok-kun to get the spider out later,” he says with nonchalance that is entirely faked. 

“Then why didn’t you get him to do it now?” 

“He didn’t pick up my call. Shouyou too.” 

Sakusa sips his tea silently. Atsumu does the same and cringes at the taste. 

“There wouldn’t be a spider if you actually cleaned your home once in a while.” 

“I _do_ clean it.” 

“Sure you do.” 

“Ya’ve never even been in there!” 

“I don’t need to.” 

Atsumu huffs and sulks on Sakusa’s stupid antimicrobial couch. 

Bokuto doesn’t answer his phone even after three and a half hours. Sakusa threatens to throw him out of his balcony when Atsumu is still hanging around after 10 p.m. They end up calling the pest control. 

“Thanks for the tea,” says Atsumu as he’s leaving. Sakusa nods and shuts the door in his face, third time that evening. 

That night, Atsumu covers himself with the duvet from head to toe when he’s sleeping, just in case the spider had children who had gone unnoticed. 

The next morning, when Atsumu’s phone is flooded with texts from Osamu calling him a loser and a wimp (Sakusa told Komori, Komori told Suna, Sunarin the little bitch told Samu), he bangs on Sakusa’s door and manages to fling three profanities at him before the door slams shut. 

  
  
  
  
  


Atsumu’s apartment is not as disastrous as Bokuto’s is, but it’s not pristine either. He has a condominium outside the city, but it’s way too far from the gym, meaning if he wants to get up in the middle of the night and practice serves because he can’t fall asleep, he has to travel for forty five minutes. He has to pay the rent for this apartment, but the MSBY apartment complex is literally across the street from their gym and there’s a 24/7 open ramen shop two blocks away which also serves great coffee.

He had been surprised when Sakusa chose to stay there as well. Especially so when Sakusa chose the apartment right in front of his own. 

Sakusa being his neighbour is not the most appealing thing in the world. It means that he knows Atsumu sings in the shower and listens to Supercell and Kinokoteikoku at the crack of dawn or in the middle of a quiet afternoon at full volume. It means he knows Atsumu goes for jogs any time he wants. It means he can hear Atsumu sneaking off to the gym in the middle of the night, and he knows that one time Atsumu fell down the stairs because he couldn’t see in the dark.

And yet. Sakusa's presence isn't completely unwanted. 

Atsumu thrives on attention- He was used to having a mirror image of himself which simultaneously bruised his ego while fulfilling his need for attention constantly around him for eighteen years. At first, moving away from the said insulting mirror image and living all alone on the floor in a strange building in a strange city was... daunting, even for him. Volleyball made it better, of course, much better, but the existence of another human ten feet away from him was comforting in the way the smell of salonpas was. 

He knows, just because Sakusa let him inside his apartment once, it doesn’t mean he is likely to do so again in the span of the next hundred years. 

Still, on a lonely Saturday evening when Osamu won’t answer his calls because he was most likely banging his boyfriend and Shouyou was having an eating contest with his own (that’s what his Instagram story showed anyway), Atsumu knocks on Sakusa’s door. 

The moment Sakusa sees his face he starts saying, “I am not letting y-” but Atsumu cuts him off before he can finish the sentence, “Wanna practice receives with me? Loser buys dinner.”

Sakusa’s perceptive gaze lingers on his face far too long for his liking, probably searching for any ulterior motives. Atsumu suddenly feels conscious about his bitten lips and dark circles.

“Fine,” says Sakusa finally, “but we eat at my place.” (Completely contradicting what he was about to say a moment ago.)

“Deal.” 

Two hours later, even though he whines incessantly about having to buy the most expensive dinner he had in the last year, he decides that he likes the warm golden-ness of Sakusa’s apartment.

  
  
  
  
  


When they were eight, Atsumu and Osamu’s parents had taken them to a beach, Atsumu doesn’t remember its name anymore. They stood side by side, shoulders touching, waves lapping at their ankles and Osamu said, his eyes reflecting the cloudless blue sky, “Ya ever wonder how the ocean looks like on the other side?” 

He didn’t respond. He remembers thinking that that right there was why him and Samu were different even though they look alike- because with a vast, endless ocean stretched before them, Samu still thought about the other side, the end; whereas Atsumu felt like he was the core of it all- the waves were coming back to _him_ because he wanted them to, the ocean went far and beyond the horizons because _Atsumu_ had commanded it to, the sky was blue and the breeze was cool because _Atsumu_ demanded that. 

(And wasn’t that why he became a setter later on- he gets to touch the ball the most, he gets to pull the strings, he gets to demand the sets and he gets the victory.)

Atsumu remembers thinking he wanted to hold onto that feeling forever- the feeling of being in the middle, the feeling of being _the_ centre even though he was standing on a shore. 

And this is why him and Sakusa are different too. If Atsumu is the centre, Sakusa likes remaining on the outskirts, never even approaching the circle. 

He knows that from the face Sakusa makes when he gets in a two-feet radius of him, when he shies away from team huddles and high fives and fist bumps, when he stands rigid in the corner of a crowded room. 

It should deter him from knocking on Sakusa’s door from time to time when he’s bored. It should stop him from asking Sakusa to stay with him after practice and engage in petty competitions just so he can have dinner surrounded in golden warmth. But it doesn’t. 

Every time Sakusa opens the door to see his face greeting him, he sighs like this is the last place on earth he wants to be and then steps aside to let Atsumu in. He doesn’t ask him to shower; it’s a given that Atsumu has already showered if he wants to enter the holy grounds. They watch volleyball games sometimes, and if Sakusa is feeling exceptionally tolerant, Atsumu gets to pick an animated movie. Sakusa scoffs and calls him childish, but he knows for a fact that Sakusa loves How to Train Your Dragon just as much as he does. 

(They come up with a system when the arguments become tiresome- if it’s a Monday, Wednesday or Friday, Sakusa picks; if it’s a Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday, Atsumu picks. If it’s a Sunday, they don’t watch anything.) 

It’s alarming, he realizes a couple of months later, it’s alarming that he’s taken a liking to tea now. It’s alarming that documentaries are kind of interesting. It’s alarming that soft jazz and sad piano pieces that are constantly swirling around in low volumes at Sakusa’s place are what he listens to when he can’t fall asleep. 

It’s alarming, but Atsumu is nothing if not good at pressing the snooze button.

  
  
  
  
  


The thing that Atsumu likes the most about Sakusa’s apartment is the balcony. There isn’t much space to hang around there, because Sakusa has crammed eighteen plants in the little space. (He counted just so he could tease him.) Six of them are in hanging pots, and the other twelve are on the floor. Sakusa has kept them in ascending order from right to left according to their heights.

As summer gets closer and closer, the light lasts longer. Atsumu likes coming to the balcony and looking out at the city or watching the clouds pass by while Sakusa makes dinner. Sometimes Sakusa joins him too and they stand there together, sometimes talking and sometimes not, with three plants between them (always three). 

There’s a bonsai of Silver Oak that he likes the most in all the plants, because it reminds him of the one in his grandparents’ backyard. He tells Sakusa about it, and absentmindedly says that he will take him there to see it someday. Sakusa merely shrugs and says that he’ll only come if they’re not going by public transport. Atsumu laughs before the weight of what they’d said slams into him like a tonne of bricks and he freaks out, bolting out of Sakusa’s apartment before touching his dinner. 

He doesn’t need a text from his brother to see where this is going. Osamu reminds him all the same- _You know how this is going to end,_ he says in a text when Atsumu tells him he didn’t pick up Samu’s call because he was watering plants with Sakusa. 

He does know. He knows it’s going to end the same way it ended with Kita-san- Atsumu’s heart burning and burning for months before the ashes slowly, slowly, scattered on Osaka winds, 109 kilometres away from Hyogo. Atsumu stays up at night listening to soft jazz and wonders how many kilometres he’ll have to travel to have Sakusa’s ashes scattered. 

  
  
  
  
  


Sakusa enters his apartment for the first time when Kageyama is announced to be the top server in the country. He finds Atsumu in his kitchen, red-faced and tear-stained, with broken pieces of a coffee mug at his feet. 

“Come on,” he says and it might be a figment of Atsumu’s imagination, but his voice sounds soft. Sakusa doesn’t touch him, but the distance between them is only one and a half plants. 

He follows Sakusa into his apartment in a daze, ignores the constant buzzing of his phone (he knows it’s Osamu without looking) and doesn’t say a word when Sakusa ushers him into the bathroom. 

He comes out wearing Sakusa’s clothes again (the same ones from last time, he notices faintly) before a cup of tea is shoved in his hands. 

Atsumu unlocks the door to the balcony and feels the coolness of the breeze against fresh tears. 

Sakusa comes to join him after a few minutes.

“I _hate_ ‘im,” Atsumu mumbles and wipes his face with the back of his hands. 

Sakusa just says “Please don’t get your tears and snot on my t-shirt.” in a perfectly steady voice. 

He feels a surge of hatred and annoyance towards Sakusa too. “Yer such a fuckin’ jerk, Omi-kun,” he seethes and looks away. The morning is pleasant and it feels like a mockery; the nature should be angry with him, there should be a whole-ass storm raging outside, not sunshine and cherry blossoms and- 

“Yeah, I am,” says Sakusa quietly, breaking his thoughts, “And you’re still here.” 

There he goes again, stating unpleasant truths that make Atsumu want to punch him. He drains his tea and goes back inside to place the mug in the sink. He’s about to leave when Sakusa comes inside too and says, “Stay for lunch.” and Atsumu doesn’t go. 

When he does go home, late in the evening, the broken shards of china in his kitchen are nowhere to be seen. 

  
  
  
  
  


Atsumu going to Sakusa’s apartment three or four times a week is as strange as it sounds. It means he knows when to go and when not to go (if the door shuts with a click when Sakusa returns from outside, he can proceed, if it’s a slam, it’s best to leave Sakusa be for a while). It means that he knows Sakusa keeps his mugs in the top third drawer from left, dishes in the middle one and chopsticks and cutlery in the top second one from the right. It means that he knows Sakusa hates the taste of beer but enjoys wine, especially rosé. It means Sakusa has stopped wearing masks and gloves around Atsumu, and he can see the tiny beauty mark at the bottom of his chin at all times. 

Sometimes, when they’re both sitting at the opposite ends of Sakusa’s couch, bathed in the light coming from the TV, Atsumu sneaks glances at Sakusa’s face and thinks about how he looks like a marble statue, again and again. The corner of Sakusa’s lips tilts up sometimes, when he finds something amusing, just a little- and it drives him _crazy-_ he thinks of grabbing a chisel and a hammer. He will place the pointy end of the chisel just where the corner twitches upwards- he will slam the hammer against the blunt end and watch Statue-Sakusa’s handsome face burst into pieces. 

It’s one thing if these thoughts only troubled him at home, but that’s the other thing- they. don’t. They barge in on his mind even when he’s on a court. He tries to avoid looking at Sakusa as much as possible. And still he sees the beautiful arch of Sakusa’s body just before he spikes the ball. Thinks he can hear the snap of his freaky wrist like a whiplash. Thinks he sees small chunks of marble flying in the air when Sakusa receives a ball. When Sakusa gets more service aces than him, his dark gaze automatically finds Atsumu’s eyes and he smirks in victory, fluttering fingers curling in fists. It’s agonizing, tantalizing - Atsumu feels too hot. It makes him wanna do all weird sorts of things- he wants to hold Sakusa’s gross, bendy wrists; he wants to trace the permanent scowl between his brows and see if his fingers can ease it; he wants to rip off his mask and see that beauty mark he sees when they’re at his home and touch it too and kiss it too maybe. He wants to ask him why his fingers are always fluttering like he’s playing an invisible piano. He wants to ask Sakusa to play it on his palm, his cheeks, his collarbones and chest and- 

“Omi-san is so scary,” whispers Shouyou one day, standing by Atsumu’s side as both of them watch Sakusa glare daggers at Bokuto who’s trying to hug him. 

Atsumu thinks back to earlier that day, when Sakusa argued with him for forty five minutes about how Itachi is cooler than Kakashi. 

“Sure he is,” he says with a lopsided smirk and Shouyou gives him a curious look before bounding to where Bokuto is; both of them making weird sounds that no one else understands. Sakusa’s curls bounce a little when he shakes his head. He looks at Atsumu as if to say _Save me._

Atsumu grins fox-kill and sticks out his tongue at him. 

  
  
  
  
  


There's a recurring thought that haunts him on sleepless nights- he has never touched Sakusa, _never_. Everything Sakusa does is so deliberate and cautious, there are no loopholes for Atsumu to sneak touches in. If Sakusa is handing him his cup of tea, he will place it on the counter or the coffee table instead of giving to him directly. If Sakusa wants to get his attention on the noisy court (thanks to Bokuto and Hinata’s whoops), he would rather throw a volleyball at his head than tap his shoulder like one would usually do. If Sakusa sees they’re reaching for the remote at the same time, he will pause midair in a stiff, awkward posture rather than having their fingers brush for the briefest of moments. 

And the worst part- the staggering want for Sakusa’s touch; worse than the feeling of defeat, because Sakusa didn’t stop at being Itachiyama’s untouchable, unreachable champion, he had to make him feel this way, he had to grind against Atsumu’s sharp edges and leave him blunt, shapeless and lost. 

Osamu thinks he has always been like this, wanting something everyone knows he can never have. Atsumu tells him to fuck off even though it’s been true up till now. And yet, when Sakusa lets him in or makes fatty tuna for dinner, he lights up with hope and hates himself for it. 

On a pink evening when the sun has set and traffic lights have started twinkling, he stands in Sakusa’s balcony, three plants away from Sakusa and watches his fingers tap on the railing. The question slips out of his mouth before he even knows he’s thinking it (old habits die hard, Samu would say). 

“Can ya touch a person?” 

Sakusa blinks in surprise, once, twice, three times as he turns around to face him. Around them, the plants flutter and rustle because of the breeze. Atsumu swallows the nervous lump in his throat and keeps holding Sakusa’s blank stare. 

“Don’t you know the answer to that.” his voice is more curt than usual; Atsumu knows Sakusa hates talking about this. But the ball has been dropped, so he proceeds. 

“I know ya hate bein’ touched by people,” he says slowly, “But I'm askin’ if _ya_ can touch others, not the other way round.”

He watches understanding slowly bloom into Sakusa’s pretty features. Sakusa looks away abruptly. Atsumu turns his head away too. 

“I don’t-” Sakusa’s voice sounds vulnerable in a way it never did before, “I never thought about it. I’ve never wanted to touch anyone.” 

Atsumu nods and bites his tongue to distract himself from the ache in his chest. 

They don’t say much after that. 

  
  
  
  
  


“How’s yer butt?,” says Osamu over a call one day, “ya had a nasty fall, didn’tcha?”

Atsumu rolls his eyes even though Samu can’t see him. “‘N how’d ya know?” 

“I can sense it. Twin bonds an’ all.”

Atsumu groans loudly. “Suna bitched ‘bout it again, didn’t he? Damn Omi-kun tellin’ Komori everythin’.”

“As if ya don’t come runnin’ t’me everyday to unload all yer crap on me.” Osamu says derisively and Atsumu squawks in defense, “Yer the one who gives me unnecessary details ‘bout yer lame sex-life!” 

“I only do that so that ya’ll hang up an’ stop wastin’ my time.” 

“Yer a scrub.” 

“So picture this- last night I was showerin’ when Rinta-” 

He hangs up. 

Sakusa merely casts a glance his way when he plops down on the couch with a thump. 

“My brother’s the lamest scrub in the history of lame scrubs.” Atsumu informs him. 

Sakusa scoffs but says nothing. 

(He’s put up with Atsumu’s presence for over four months now. It means he knows that three fifths of Atsumu’s meltdowns are yelled across a cell phone to Osamu. It means he knows that Osamu texts him rude, quippy insults everyday. It means he knows that Atsumu is at the top of his game when Samu is watching from the stands and that despite the banter, Atsumu never changes his lock screen depicting him and Samu arm in arm, grinning at the camera.) 

  
  
  
  
  


Watering plants, Atsumu thinks one afternoon, is oddly blissful. He gets to point out clouds shaped like sea-urchins and tease Sakusa, he gets to stand in the cramped space with just 2 or 3 plants' worth space between them, he gets to see how Sakusa's curls shimmer like obsidian in the bright sun. 

"Wash your hands," says Sakusa suddenly and he starts.

"I showered-" 

"Wash your hands," Sakusa repeats and then, stonily, "please." 

There are days and there are days, Atsumu knows. Today is a day, and so he obliges in silence. When he comes back from the bathroom, words on the tip of his tongue- _Do you want me to leave? T_ hey evaporate there and then when Sakusa's un-gloved hand covers his slightly damp one.

The world feels like it’s spinning violently, there’s a rush of blood towards his face, he can hear it in his ears, he can feel his heart beat so fast that it feels like it’s not beating at all. 

Sakusa’s touch is searing. It boils his blood, incinerates his cells, sets his everything aflame. 

Atsumu exhales shakily. A long finger traces the curve of his knuckles, gliding up and down slowly and- this is the entirety of Atsumu's existence now, this right here- the point where Sakusa's skin brushes against his own- the point where tendrils of fire slowly start curling up and spreading throughout his body. 

He wants- more. He wants to press their palms together and lock their fingers and burn and burn and burn. 

He lets his gaze snap to Sakusa’s face, eyes wide and mouth parted and sees that Sakusa’s eyes are wide too, dark curls falling into his face, casting shadows. He thinks he can sense the faint tremor in pale fingers. 

When he stops, Atsumu is glad- because if he hadn’t, he would have done something utterly stupid like jump off the balcony, faint on the spot or kiss him breathless. 

They stare at each other for a moment. 

Sakusa clears his throat. “The other day-” he says, “You said- I thought I might try.” and then he turns around and resumes watering the plants as if Atsumu hadn’t died right then and there.

They don’t meet each other’s eyes at the practice the next day. 

  
  
  
  
  


They win against the Schweiden Adlers spectacularly. Sakusa rolls his eyes when Atsumu sticks his tongue out at Kageyama, but Atsumu is perceptive enough to notice his smile. 

  
  
  
  


That night, both of them stumble into Sakusa’s apartment, drunk on alcohol and high on victory. Atsumu pauses in the genkan and looks at the living room in front of him. Everything looks a little blurred around the edges as if it’s a dream. 

“Wait,” he says (was his voice always like this? It’s kind of funny), “This ain’t my home.” 

Sakusa, who’s already in the living room, drops his jacket on the couch (perhaps drunk Sakusa is careless) and turns back to look at him. “Isn’t it?” 

Atsumu walks forward and tries to blink away the fuzziness in his vision. 

_Don’t say things you don’t mean,_ he wants to tell Sakusa, _I’m tired of burning, let me scatter the ashes once and for all._

But how can he do that if Sakusa is like this- blurry and humanly statuesque and heart-wrenching, gut-twistingly beautiful? 

“Omi-kun,” he says and takes a few steps forward, stumbling a little when his knee hits the coffee table that was definitely not there when he looked ahead of him. 

Not breaking their eye-contact, Sakusa takes off his gloves. 

Atsumu looks at those hands, hands that he’s yearned to touch and be touched by; hands that hit all his tosses and break their opponents’ hearts with a snap; hands that play the invisible piano keys that only they can sense; hands that touched Atsumu’s own for approximately twenty seconds. Hands that are held in front of Sakusa right now, and drunk Atsumu is foolish enough to believe it’s an invitation. 

The walk to the bathroom is excruciatingly long. He tries not to rush washing his hands- tries to rub every spot, slides his fingers between each other viciously, rubs his wrists too. By the time he’s patting his hands dry, every fibre of Atsumu’s being seems on the edge with anticipation. 

Sakusa is standing in the kitchen when he returns, making tea. 

“Kiyoomi,” Atsumu whispers and the name is a strange sound on his tongue; but he likes it; just as he likes the way Sakusa’s curls bounce when he whirls to face Atsumu; likes the way his breaths are short and eyes are wide. 

Atsumu steps closer to Sakusa in his golden-lit kitchen, closer and closer until he's only one plant away and extends his hand. It must be a figment of his imagination, but Sakusa’s eyes look soft. Or that must be the alcohol. (Who knows? Who cares?)

When Sakusa presses their palms together, he does it with very little hesitation. 

Tonight, Atsumu does not hold himself back from interlacing their fingers. 

(If he closes his eyes, he knows he’ll be back on the sea-shore. He’ll feel the waves at his ankles, hear the sea-gulls, smell the ocean. He’ll be in the midst and they’ll all oblige. 

The waves will come back to him because he wants them to, the ocean will go far and beyond the horizons because _Atsumu_ commands it to, the sky will be blue and the breeze will be cool because _Atsumu_ demands that. 

There’s an antimicrobial blanket in Sakusa’s bedroom that wasn’t there before because _Atsumu_ gets cold. There’s a can of Sapporo in Sakusa’s fridge because _Atsumu_ wants it. There’s a nineteenth plant in Sakusa’s balcony because _Atsumu_ likes white lilies.

The golden warmth of Sakusa’s apartment is not that different from the golden sand on the seashore. 

_Everything_ , except-

Atsumu is here because _Sakusa_ wants him here.) 

Atsumu ducks his head and brushes his lips across Sakusa’s knuckles. He looks at their twined fingers and thinks that maybe, he’d like to hold onto them forever. 

There are two plain white mugs on the countertop of Sakusa’s kitchen, next to the kettle that boils the water noisily. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> if y'all wanna rant about anime, follow me on Twitter @[XxxAnm](https://mobile.twitter.com/XxxAnm)
> 
> Or my Tumblr @[nonsensicalfrickfrack](https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard)
> 
> Feel free to leave a kudos and a comment! I try to reply as much as I can :D


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